


Breathe

by nightlife



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25986790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightlife/pseuds/nightlife
Summary: Beauty in the deepest dark.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Breathe

Through rain-flecked glasses, the city’s lights are a watercolour blur. Spurs of bright pink neon, dashes of orange from the streetlamps, the blink of an apartment light going out and leaving nothing but the oppressive dark. The rain hammering on the surface of his umbrella drowns out the rush of the cars going by, yet his shoes and the cuffs of his jeans are drenched. Skin itchy and damp, he flexes his hands. They are raw and numb. Storm clouds hang low overhead, terrible shades of grey and black obscuring the moon. It’s as stifling as smoke; the tang of the metropolitan air makes him want to retch.

He trudges on in a stubborn trance, pulling his cardigan tighter around his shoulders. A group of young boys burst from a convenience store across the street. The tallest shoulders his friend, and the others bark with laughter. Atsushi turns quickly into an offshoot to avoid them. It’s hidden from the main roads, no light touching the wide, cobbled paths. Only an avenue of deep shadows that press in from all sides, and the low hum of city life passing him by.

A car speeds past, headlights, bleared by the rain, blinding him momentarily. He’s fast enough to lower his umbrella to block the gutter water that shoots up, wincing at the rain that soaks through his hair and slides down his neck. It leaves his socks disgustingly damp and his umbrella redundant. He worries his lip and stares at the ground, nose wrinkling at the squelching of the water in his shoes. Unable to see more than vague shapes in the dark, Atsushi takes refuge underneath the overhang of a store. The street is bordered by shops all the way down to the corner. He lets his gaze wander hopelessly in the blackness.

Maybe he’d finally admit it to himself - he was awfully lost.

Memories of the last hour flash through his mind, disconnected snapshots of savage glares, screaming and crying. The sound of a door slamming shut - maybe in his face, or behind him, or both - and then the cold bite of the rain and wind on his skin. The phantom touch of a hand gripping his wrist lingers for a second, and is gone the next, replaced by the heavy weight of his umbrella. He gives it an experimental twirl, but his numb fingers fumble and it  _ clacks  _ as it hits the stone. Atsushi heaves a shallow sigh and wipes the lens of his glasses with a sleeve.

He inhales deeply.

The air tastes like metal and petrol fumes.

He tries to tell himself that the pricks at the corners of his eyes are just the rain.

In. Out.

It feels like hours - hours of breathing in pollution that burns his throat. The weather has worn a dull ache into his bones, and left his hands feeling clammy. Atsushi ignores the shuddering of his fingertips. Distraction. He squeezes his eyes shut and draws in a few shallow breaths, hunching over under the store’s awning. One, two, three, in. One, two, three, out. When he opens his eyes again, there is a little more than just the dark.

Opposite him is a taller man, features illuminated by the whitish-blue of a phone screen. It’s enough to startle Atsushi into rigid silence, eyes affixing to the pinprick in the murky shadows. The stranger stares intently at his device, scuffing his shoes against the pavement absent-mindedly. Atsushi leans his head on his hands as he crouches. Exhaustion stings his eyes, but as the edges of his vision begins to blur, the stranger moves abruptly.

He glances up from his phone to the sky, back to the main road, and then down the street. Perhaps Atsushi was staring too long, because he swears the man meets his gaze in the dark before he snaps on the flashlight and starts across the road, headed straight for him. It’s beacon bright amidst the gloom, such a shock to the system that it almost hurts, and Atsushi stands up and scrubs at his eyes underneath his glasses. As the flash beam hits the tip as Atsushi’s shoes, the stranger stops. Vaguely, he can make out a hoodie and jeans, colourless in the dark. His hair is cast silver in the phonelight, and it clings to his head, matted and wet. A thick cowlick drips on the left side of his face, firm and a tad frizzy from the rain. It’s a bit ridiculous, and in his delirium, Atsushi almost wants to laugh. Instead, the stranger flashes the light in his eyes and he steps back with a hiss, dizzy and disoriented as he scrubs more stars away.

“Can you not?” He croaks, and his voice comes out raspy.

“Sorry,” murmurs the stranger.

Atsushi clears his throat with a cough into his fist. There is an interlude filled only with the sound of the rain. The stranger is staring at the ground.

“Not much of a social butterfly, are you?” Atsushi feigns a laugh to break the silence, “Get out of the rain, you stupid oaf.”

_ Not very civil of me,  _ Atsushi thinks but does not dwell: _ I’m justified. _

If he was listening, the man doesn’t let on. Just tilts his head away and observes some distant point. The movement is subtle but filled with contemplation.

“No, not really.” The stranger’s voice is strangely absent, matching the wistfulness in his eyes.

Atsushi’s mind supplies the word:  _ vague. _

The stranger takes his own spot under the store’s awning. Atsushi leans down and picks up his umbrella, preferring to observe the new creases and folds as the duo lapse into contemplative silence. The rain has slimmed to a drizzle, pattering gently against the overhang. The stranger stands with his phone in one hand and the other in his pocket. Atsushi watches the fleeting forms of the droplets in the light as they disappear into the dark cobble.

Atsushi spares a glance for the unknown beside him. He is drenched, clothes weighing heavy on a lithe frame. Coppery eyes stare pointedly at the screen. Hair that appeared silvery, at closer observation, seems a shade of blonde, dulled and dirtied by the city storm. Smooth skin and long lashes. Delicate fingers with perfectly trimmed nails. The exceptionally handsome stranger is at least a head taller than him. There is a youthful, boyish look about him that lends a sense of agelessness. Grace and elegance in his careful movements and regality in his poise. Yet there is a low-hanging impression of resignation; his dollar-store clothes, or the slump in his shoulders, or maybe the dark circles under his eyes.

Atsushi has seen him before, but he can’t quite place  _ where _ .

“Take a photo,” Atsushi can  _ hear _ the smirk in the stranger’s voice, but there is no evidence on the man’s face. “It’ll last longer.”

Atsushi snatches his stare away and scowls at nothing, a low irritation flickering under his skin.

The rain continues to fall.

He focuses on the  _ drip, drip, _ dripping of the drops off the awning.

Hm. A photo.

_ Drip, drip, drop. _

A photo?

_ Drip, drop, drip. _

“Wait!” Atsushi exclaims at once, but catches himself.

The stranger’s gaze is hyperfocused on him, alarm in the twitch of his fingers.

“Sorry,” Atsushi mutters hastily, and then adds, “But you’re not that super-famous guy, by any chance?”

He is shameless in lieu of his appearance - puffy eyes and soaked to his socks. He wonders if they look particularly shady, a pair in the dark corner of an even darker alleyway.

The man raises a brow, “Which one?”   
“Oh, ha-ha.”

Atsushi makes a floppy movement with his free hand, half a flail and half a thoughtful gesture. His eyes start to wander as he searches for words, “That one model kid, who recently got a toothpaste ad-”

“Oh, sure. That’s me.”

“Up-and-coming supermodel?”

“Yes.”

“That’s  _ you _ ?”

“Mhm.”

Atsushi whips back around and squints through the darkness.

He remembers kempt hair, not a strand out of place. A wide, innocent smile flashing perfect teeth. A sugarsweet tilt of the chin and a decisive cheer in his eyes.

_ ‘How charming! How cute!’ _ He remembers the glossed-lips teengirls saying, in saccharine soprano.

His face is plastered on billboards everywhere, on train station walls during the daily commute, on video monitors that are plagued by advertisements more than the news. The picture-perfect posterboy, sung praises for perfect hair and a perfect face and a perfectly fake smile.

Nothing about the person in front of him now screams ‘ _ sweet and minty fresh’ _ .

Atsushi’s perspective rearranges itself.

There is nothing similar between the stranger before him and the delighted boy framed in every corner of the city. The boy in the pictures is grace and beauty and happiness, skin unblemished and a faux grin betraying every thought behind the camera. A celebrity. A role model. Naive and untouchable.

_ ‘Smile even if you don’t mean it. Please the masses. Please the people. They’re blind.’ _ Those are his father’s words - Atsushi knows them well.

The stranger in front of him now appears a wearied traveller, worn by the elements and condemned by life, as all people are. He wears an invisible weight on his shoulders and stares at the unseeable. He looks a little lost. A little fearful.

Yet, they are both the same. It is there in the line of his jaw and the unreachable air - distant. It is there in the flutter of his eyelashes and the touch of his fingers - soft and prim. One and the same.

_ Expectation versus reality, _ Atsushi broods grimly.  _ How long can you hold it for? _

“Sure, chief.” He catches himself saying instead, as he leans back against the wall. “I believe that. And what brings a shiny new supermodel to this shady alleyway? I’m sure you don’t have any  _ unsavoury  _ pastimes.” The sarcasm in his voice is not at all playful.

The rain falls. This time, the pause doesn’t last.

“Plenty of celebrities have had  _ unsavoury _ pastimes.” Tall and Handsome remarks, “And my pastime isn’t unsavoury. This is a shopping alley. At least I know where I am.”

_ Smartass _ . Thinks Atsushi wryly, and he says, “I’m not  _ lost _ .”

“Misdirected?” The stranger supplies, finally offering his full attention as his phone hand lowers.

“It doesn’t  _ matter  _ if I am or not.” Snorts the former, glancing away. “It’s the city. It’s the same wherever you go. You won’t miss a thing, even if you  _ are _ in the wrong part of town.”

A low hum passes the model’s lips, “I disagree.”

“Do you now.” Drawls Atsushi.

Mr. Model looks back at the ground and wrings his hands absent-mindedly. A new sense of melancholy settles over the two, gentle, but nonetheless apprehensive. The darkness presses in.

“I think so.”

_ Vague. _

“Care to elaborate?”

Still hesitating, the model states, “I’m chasing experiences.”

A moment. Atsushi blinks rapidly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Chasing.”   
“After that?”

“Experiences.”

He works to repress a bark of laughter, covering his mouth with one hand. It doesn’t stop a strangled snicker coming through.

“Chasing  _ what _ ?” He sniffs, clearing his throat. “There’s nothing here, unless you want… you know.  _ Unsavoury pastimes. _ ”

“You have a very dark worldview.” Mr. Model’s brows knit together, and muddy eyes search him warily.

Atsushi gives a noncommittal hum, closing his eyes and letting the sounds of the rain soak into his mind. It’s no surprise; he’s well aware. Cynicism is a trait borne to those of the city, where the pressures of a busy life weigh on a person’s shoulders like two blocks of lead.

_ A high-strung place for the high-strung people. _

Thinking about it makes his throat itch.

“Do you like sounding like some obscure old man?” He slides one eye open in a display of ignorance.

Mr. Nameless looks even more perturbed as he turns away, “I’m just saying. You can find cool things everywhere, even in a place like this.”

“Someone who sees the beauty in everything.” He shifts, shoulder blades knocking painfully against the brick wall, before he folds his arms, umbrella left to lean by itself. “Typical wise guy.”

“I’m a dreamer. Wonderful things in places you don’t expect can change the way you think.” His voice has regained that wistful detail, the aspect of a wish waiting to be fulfilled.

“Sounds like you’re deluded.” Atsushi scoffs.

“I’m just a dreamer.”   
“Wishful thinking.”

“Only if you’re blind.”

The stranger’s glare pierces his own, not unlike the patient glare of a cat with its owlish eyes fixed on him. Questioning. Demanding. It burns a little - but the itch in his throat dies and curiosity seizes him.

“What are you trying to say?” Atsushi mutters.

He knows that Mr. No-Name isn’t talking about his glasses. The stranger’s words are an adaptation of a lecture he’s heard a thousand times, on repeat, in a thousand different voices.

_ ‘There are good things out there!’ _ ,  _ ‘life gets better’ _ ,  _ ‘everything is beautiful in its own way’ _ \- platitudes hissed in his ears over and over until they’ve become novelty lines in a joke book.

But there is a lot to hide in the oppressive dark of the alleyway. Quiet whispers at the back of his head, goading him into maybe believing that something that far-fetched is a possible thing.

“It won’t be long now.” And Nameless holds his phone up for Atsushi to see.

In bold white, the numbers: 5:57AM punctuate an otherwise dark background. Atsushi recognises the background. The city lights bloom in shades of green, yellow, red, blue and white, up to the tops of its skyscrapers. There is the endless spanse of the ocean behind the silhouettes of the buildings, windows like sequins and streetlamps like pinpricks.

There are no stars despite a cloudless sky. Light pollution.

The phone locks.

The timestamp doesn’t faze him. The dark tends to devour time like a black hole. Endlessly wandering in the cold, letting the wind bite your hands and the rain stab your face.

Atsushi gives the stranger a deadpan stare, and it only earns him a gentle smile. It’s nothing more than an upturn at the corner of his lips - still enough to set off something in Atsushi’s mind that whispers,  _ Give it a chance. _

He relinquishes to dubious silence. A conversation of philosophy, with none other than a passerby who stumbled upon him completely by chance. Someone who happened to be famous, humble in conduct, quiet but outspoken. Atsushi trades his pride for sympathy, and his sympathy for respect.

Perhaps Life just dealt him a turbulent hand.

The minutes tick by. He keeps the seconds, but loses count quickly. Restless, Atsushi is about to open his mouth to demand an explanation.

And then, one by one, the bulbs of fairy lights begin to light up like golden stars.

In the darkness, they climb up the awning, wound around the stable poles and into the lattice at the top. A million tiny suns slicing through the dark, chasing it away to the furthest corners. Effortlessly, the light glides along the ropes draped across the top of the alley, a network of intricate little webs that cast down a gold haze and turn the cobble into stone washed in something like the sunrise. They are strung to the bottom of second-story balconies, illuminating the niche pot plants on the sills, and bedecking the overhangs of other shops along the path. The shop behind him is a bakery, he realises, finding a window of cakes - from strawberry cream to a tantalising caramel. Soon enough, the street is bathed in gold straight down to the corner, and the only shadow Atsushi can see is his own. The rain, once dark and imperceptible, takes on a translucence in the light that he had never fathomed. The drops, like glass, fall and shatter against the stone.

It feels ethereal, almost. A second ago, he couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face. Touch was all he had and even his fingers were too cold for that, bitten numb by the storm. Obscured by the deep night, the lights had slipped past his notice.

The rain is a beautiful mist, and something wells up in his chest and his eyes. He wants to cry, but his conscience feels clear.

“See?” Mr No-Name murmurs softly, like a tender nudge.

Atsushi can see him now - clearly, as bright as day. His eyes are not a muddy brown, but a vibrant, crimson red. His hair isn’t a sticky, dirty yellow, it’s a platinum blonde - glossy in the newfound light. He doesn’t notice he’s staring until he moves to drag the hair from his eyes. It surprises him to find that he’s as soaked as the stranger, having wandered from the shelter without realising. His hand comes away with a hint of rosy pink. His dye must be running, but Atsushi can’t bring himself to care.

He feels a bit… starstruck.

No-Name cups his hands to catch the rain, and lets it spill between his fingers.

He doesn’t have to speak. It is a silent moment. One of longing, of understanding.

_ I told you. Beautiful things  _ are _ real. _

_ Corny, _ Atsushi wants to say, but the words die in his throat.

The scent of the city is the same. At heart, it will always be the same. But the metropolitan air does not sting him now. He feels untouchable.

“Will I see you again?” He whispers.

The starry-eyed stranger gives him a whimsical smile, and offers a tentative promise.

“Maybe.”

For a breath, Atsushi feels it too. A pure feeling, like clear skies and clear waters.

Peace given form. A break from the world.

“Yeah, okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Total time: 20 hours | Word count: 2940  
> [Part 1]


End file.
